William Butler Yeats

Poetry Corner

To a Wealthy Man who promised a second Subscription to the Dublin Municipal Gallery if it were proved the People wanted Pictures.

YOU gave but will not give again

Until enough of Paudeen's pence

By Biddy's halfpennies have lain

To be 'some sort of evidence,'

Before you'll put your guineas down,

That things it were a pride to give

Are what the blind and ignorant town

Imagines best to make it thrive.

What cared Duke Ercole, that bid

His mummers to the market place,

What th' onion-sellers thought or did

So that his Plautus set the pace

For the Italian comedies?

And Guidobaldo, when he made

That grammar school of courtesies

Where wit and beauty learned their trade

Upon Urbino's windy hill,

Had sent no runners to and fro

That he might learn the shepherds' will.

And when they drove out Cosimo,

Indifferent how the rancour ran,

He gave the hours they had set free

To Michelozzo's latest plan

For the San Marco Library,

Whence turbulent Italy should draw

Delight in Art whose end is peace,

In logic and in natural law

By sucking at the dugs of Greece.

Your open hand but shows our loss,

For he knew better how to live.

Let Paudeens play at pitch and toss,

Look up in the sun's eye and give

What the exultant heart calls good

That some new day may breed the best

Because you gave, not what they would

But the right twigs for an eagle's nest!

December 1912.

Programmed by Danny Francisco. Concept and Design by Chris Jenkins